5 practical tips to target ads in Facebook Ads

You created a flawless campaign on Facebook, with incredible images, attractive content and a . However, the results were not as expected and the ad did not return.

What happened? Maybe you don’t know how to target Facebook Ads correctly.

Many advertisers create interesting and well-produced content, but they forget a fundamental detail: target audience segmentation.

When done the right way, you ensure your message reaches the right people. That is, users with more chances to buy your product or interact with your brand.

That is why, in this article, we have brought you some practical tips that will help you better segment your Facebook Ads campaigns and improve the results of your ads. Shall we start?

Why is it important to segment your campaigns on Facebook?

Have you ever felt that your Facebook ads are not working and all your investment is being wasted?

Trust me, you are not alone. According to a near 62% of small business owners say their campaigns are not reaching the right audience.

And it’s no use creating a and compelling text if users who see the campaign do not fit your brand’s customer profile.

They will not be interested in your message or your solution. Thus, your ad will have many impressions, but few clicks.

Fortunately, there are tools and tricks that allow you to target ads in Facebook Ads and determine who will see the campaign.

That is, it will not be all Facebook users who will see the ad, but only those who have the profile you choose. In this way, the chances of these people converting is much greater.

For example, if you are disclosing a about smartphone maintenance, there is no point in targeting those who are not interested in technology or mobile devices. In this case, the user will hardly click on your and the investment will not have the expected return.

Using Facebook’s targeting tools, you can choose the exact profile of those who should see your ad. As people interested in technology, smartphones and electronics, for example.

The more refined and precise the segmentation you make, the greater the chances that your ad will be shown to potential buyers.

5 Tips for Targeting Ads on Facebook

Very well, you already understood that segmentation is one of the fundamental aspects for the success of an advertisement on Facebook Ads. But how to do it correctly?

when you go to , it is not enough just to filter the target audience by age and gender. It is necessary to go further and define the behavioral characteristics and interests of the people you hope to reach with the content.

Although it seems like a difficult task, there are some tricks that you can use that help a lot when it comes to targeting ads on Facebook Ads.

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Here are five hacks to put into practice right now!

1. Use a list of your customers

Our first tip is very useful for brands that already have a good customer or lead base. The allows you to upload a list of customers and create a custom audience based on that data.

In this way, you manage to direct your campaigns to users with a profile more similar to those who are already customers of your therefore, with more chances to buy your product.

To use this option, access the Ad Manager and choose the “Audience” section. Next, click on “Create Audience” and choose “Custom Audience”.


In the window that opens, select “Customer list” to upload your list of leads.

You have two options to upload this information to Facebook: with a .csv file or by copying and pasting the customer data.

You don’t need a lot of customer data to use this functionality. Just the email address is enough.

But to improve the match and get even more accurate results, try to use as much data as you have about the leads, such as full name, phone, zip code, city, etc.

Facebook combines the data you send with that of users of the social network. With this crossing, you manage to precisely define the type of client you want to attract and retain.

2. Create a target audience based on your website visitors

Another way to segment ads on Facebook Ads is to create a target audience based on your website traffic. That is, Facebook creates a personalized audience based on the behavior of the people who visit your website.

To use this functionality, you need which is a code that records information such as conversions and visits to a website and sends it to the Ad Manager of the social network.

After installing the Facebook Pixel on your website, select Website Traffic to create your Custom Audience. Then, you will have access to some targeting options like:

  • all visitors to the site;
  • visitors from a specific URL;
  • based on time spent on site.

All website visitors

Just like the title says, create a custom target audience based on all the people who visit your website in a certain period of time up to 180 days. After that period, users will be removed from the custom audience unless they meet the criteria you’ve set again.

People who visited specific web pages

You can also segment your audience based on people who visited a specific URL, such as one of your product pages.

In this case, just enter the URL in question or a specific keyword. If you prefer, you can also define a minimum frequency of visits to that URL and even filter by device (Android, iOS or desktop).

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It is interesting to apply this strategy during the since it allows it to be disclosed to users who have visited similar collections or products.

And also for an old product that is on sale and you want to attract people who have already seen that product in the past and may be interested again.

Based on time spent on site

Finally, you can also segment the users who spend the most time browsing your website or a specific URL, which corresponds to the 5%, 10% or 25% of the most active users.

By being in more frequent contact with your business, it is likely that this part of the public has more interest in the news and launches of the brand.

3. Limit the audience to reach specific audiences

Facebook offers a number of options for targeting ads. Generally, those choices fall into three categories: demographics, interests, and behavior. But within each category you can further narrow the results.

For example, on demographics, you can target your ad to parents. But you can go further and reach only parents of teenagers.

Still in demographics, you can also filter your audience based on marital status and job title.

Now imagine what happens when we start mixing those layers of segmentation. The ad can be directed at divorced parents of teenagers and that also hold management positions.

In “Interests” and “behavior” you can segment those who are interested in spending vacations at the beach and tend to travel abroad frequently, for example.

Whenever you want to further restrict the audience of your ad, just click on “Limit Audience”.

This strategy allows you to target ads on Facebook Ads with unparalleled precision. That is why it is more indicated when you want to reach a very specific part of the public.

4. Separate your mobile and desktop campaigns

It is no news that smartphones are the most popular devices to access the Internet. In other words, to stay relevant in the digital world, you need to pay attention to .

One of the most important rules when it comes to targeting ads in Facebook Ads in the right way is not to use the same ad for mobile and desktop campaigns. Ideally, create separate campaigns.

There are two very simple reasons for that:

  • Different audiences: People who access Facebook on the cell phone do not usually use the social network on the desktop, and vice versa. Just so you have an idea, in 2016 Facebook surpassed the mark of , those who only use smartphones and tablets to browse the Web. So, you need to decide which of the two types of users you want to target.
  • Image optimization: The Facebook Ads tool even has an option to optimize your desktop ad for mobile devices, but ideally you should use the to check the image specifications for each platform. Your ad may look perfect on a desktop, but if the majority of visits are from smartphone users and they don’t get to see the entire image or text, you may be wasting your money.
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5. Use Audience Insights to better understand your audience

After creating your custom audience and placing your first ad on the air, take the opportunity to access the . It is a Facebook tool that gathers information about users within your audiences. Thus, you get to find out more about these people and offer them an even better experience.

Below the “Create audience” option, on the left side of the screen, you can select the target audience for one of your ads. From then on, you will have access to a series of data about those users.

This information is divided into four categories: demographic data, number of “likes” on the page, location and activities.

  • Demographics: presents information on age, gender and educational level of the users of that target audience;
  • Number of page likes: It gathers data about other pages and profiles that those people follow, ranked according to relevance. With that, you manage to have a good notion of the main interests of your audience;
  • Location: allows you to know in which cities and countries your users are located, in addition to the main languages ​​they use;
  • Exercise: This option presents data such as the average number of comments from these users, what they share and the interactions they usually have with ads, as well as the type of device they use to access the social network.

Audience Insights data is extremely valuable when it comes to targeting ads on Facebook Ads. With this tool, you have a more detailed view of the people who are coming into contact with your brand.

Therefore, the next time you are going to create a campaign on the largest social network on the Internet, do not forget to consult this service to optimize the results of the ads.

Targeting ads on Facebook allows you to fully exploit the potential of paid campaigns and reach your goals faster. But that’s just one of the ways to buy traffic for your channels. If you want to discover other modalities and how to apply them correctly, read our complete ebook…

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